Both of them have some fantastic points that will help transform the way you think, and straighten your path to success.

Do take a minute to leave me a comment below and let me know how it has helped you.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

Have a fantastic day. 🙂

Note:

Some of the links above are cleverly disguised affiliate links, which means if you choose to buy, I'd be sent a tiny commission which helps me keep the lights on on this blog 😉 . Regardless, It doesn't change my opinion, as the end result I want is for you to get the best possible advice.

The question was "Suffering from Bright Shiny Objects? How did you kick the habit?"

That is a great question, something we never think about when we start on the journey to grow and learn a new skill or move towards a new path in life.

Whether you are looking to lose weight, learn guitar, invest in real estate or start an online business, you are going to initially go after the Shiny Objects.

You know what I'm talking about.

Programs that claim 'lose 30lbs in 30 days', 'learn to play the guitar like Kirk Hammet in 30 days', 'become a real estate millionaire in one year' and so on.

Now, there may be some truth to the claims, and some amount of exageration is needed to tap into the desire of people to get those results.

But the problem lies with us who buy such things.

We buy one of the programs and don't persist and follow everything for the 30 days, and when we see the next shiny object that makes a similar or even more appealing promise, we jump on that band wagon.

Now, I'm no saint.

In fact, I've stuffed up more times than I can remember.

Losing fat was probably one of the few areas I didn't get sucked into the Bright Shiny Object Syndrome.

But in wanting to start and build an online business in the 'best way possible' I have spent thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on stuff – programs, tools etc.

But some time last year something just clicked in me.

I sat down and created an Excel spreadsheet on all the stuff that I had bought, how much they cost, if I had gone though the product, if I had implemented it etc.

The result shocked the heck out of me.

I had spent a LOT of money.

Some were seeming low priced products, others were higher priced ones, but at the end of the day I had spent a lot of money on these, and hadn't taken action on many of them.

The few that I had implemented, I either gave up on, or implemented partially, giving me partial results.

The other problem also is that when we see a great course that costs, say $297, we say, 'I don't have that money' or, 'I don't want to spend so much on that course'.

But when we finally calculate the amount we spent on lower priced courses and tools, to finally realise that all of them didn't have the right answers (complete picture), and led you down the wrong path, the unseen costs are much higher.

So to say the least, I spent way to much on these and ended up wasting money that I had saved up to be able to run paid traffic etc.

Once I saw the data in the spreadsheet, I realised my mistake.

I stopped buying products and stopped doing all the various 'businesses' I was doing.

I had spread myself so thin that I was absolutely stressed out of my head.

But after making the decision to not buy another course till I needed to learn more about something in a particular area, and had gone through all that I had bought but not used, thats the only time I'd look at buying something new.

I will write a post on what I would do if I started again in the Online business path, and how I would proceed, with the hope that it helps someone starting now.

Take some time TODAY, and fill the spreadsheet with stuff that you have purchased in the area that you are struggling with the Bright Shiny Object Syndrome, be that in real estate inesting, learning to play the guitar, starting an online business or a myriad of other topics. Go as far back as you possibly can.

Once you've filled that, look at the data. It will speak for itself.

Now once you have done that. Choose one of the most 'complete' programs in there, get it out and focus on everything that it says for the next 3 – 6 months.

I made that commitment and have made so much progress in 2015, that I am stunned.

The clarity that decision to just focus on one path, come hell or high water, has made a huge difference.

It has reduced stress, has improved commitment and I have made noticeable progress in my journey.

Although these are more focussed towards online business, the pronciples apply to any area you are looking to improve in.

All the very best.

Know that all of us go through this, so there is no need to beat yourself up about it, but recognise it and fight hard to overcome it and move from being a consumer to producer. Go from being an Information Addict to an Action Taker.

Thanks for taking time to read this and I hope you take action on this TODAY, and make this the first day in the rest of your transformed life.

If this has helped you, or if there is anything I can add to help you more, leave me a comment below and share this article with your friends using the share buttons – you never know whose life you could change. 🙂

Have a fantastic day.

Note:

Some of the links above are cleverly disguised affiliate links, which means if you choose to buy, I'd be sent a tiny commission which helps me keep the lights on on this blog 😉 . Regardless, It doesn't change my opinion, as the end result I want is for you to get the best possible advice.

There is so much talk about free this, free that, and people saying, information should be free, and all such things.

Now, this might be controversial, but from personal experience, and research on the psychology behind it, I have come to believe and understand that we need to pay for things (including information), to succeed.

The thing is this, our hard drives are littered with – free guides, free videos, free this and free that

My question is, how much of that have you USED? In my case, until recently, NO MUCH at all.

Then on further thought and research, I came to understand that when we don’t pay money for something, and/or don’t have an acute need for answers in some area, our attention is not focussed on the items we have got for free.

Now, these free items may include books in the public domain, info products that are given away for free and so on etc.

But, when we actually pay money for it, we tend to pay attention to it.

This attention also seems to be proportionate to the amount of money we pay.

A book bought on Kindle for $0.99 tends to get less attention than a physical book that we have spent $20 on.

Now if it is a rarer book, and you put in some effort to find it and paid a higher price for it – say $100 – there is a tendency for us to give it more value and attention (although the content might be exactly the same).

Now why is this?

This is because we on a subconscious level think that ‘Nothing really worthwhile is free’.

Although this can be true, I’m finding that it is not always true.

So how do we use this knowledge to ‘give value’ to information that we may have obtained for free?

Well, look at it this way, in a very broad sense, it’s not really free.

Say your hourly worth is $100, and you’d spent 30 minutes looking for something, you have quite literally spent $50 on it already, before you have even started using it.

Looking at it from another perspective, we can also use this measure to decide if we need to buy yet another book that will sit on the bookshelf, a program or product that will just sit on your hard drive, because to dedicate time and attention to it means, that you need to make sure it’s worth it.

I spent a large part of the last 2 years making this mistake.

I’d buy product after product, book after book, for cheap, but not really consume it, but when I put a sizeable investment into it, I actually started to use it.

Also, I’ve stopped buying books and products that do not contribute to what I’m working on right now.

This is a biggie, and once you can change your mindset from ‘Just in Case’ learning to ‘Just in Time’ learning, you will start to focus, be less distracted and start making headway into any goal. And when you pay, and pay a bigger price, for the information, there is better chance that you will pay attention to it and take action on it.

The big information marketing experts understand this, which is why they price their products high.

Yes, they have books on the same content as their higher end programs, but they know that the people who really value their time and want to pay attention to a particular thing, will pay to get the higher end program, and therefore get the intimate details of getting the results they desire.

This is why, investing into books and information products is worth it.

We could spend hours and hours, scouring the internet for information and then try to put it all together and try it out by ourselves (just to save a few dollars), but in the end, if you calculate the time you have spent (even before using the information) and the value of that time, I can guarantee you that you would spend a lot more time (and money) on the ‘free’ information, than buying a book or info product.

Just look at it this way

If you spent 2 hours looking for some information (and some searching can take a LOT longer) you have spent $200 even before you have organised that information (which again takes time) and tested that information (which can take a LONG time), think of all the money that has been wasted. Even at a conservative estimate of 6 hours for the total process, that’s $600 worth of your time.

This is why getting a book or info product, even if it is expensive, saves you time and trouble, and helps you succeed faster.

In life, to succeed in anything, we need to pay the price in advance.

Buying a book means you pay for it in advance, before you get the knowledge and expertise of the expert. And so in success with anything.

We tangibly or intangibly have to pay for it in advance.

You want to lose weight?

Then invest in a few diet and nutrition books, get a gym membership and make a time commitment in your weekly schedule to get there, and get someone to be accountable to – pay for a personal trainer if you can (at least initially till you get yourself going).

You want to build a business?

Then invest in books and programs about business in general, and the particular market that you are going to serve. If you can get a coach or a mentor (although it can be financially expensive), go get one.

In life, everything worth having and achieving, needs to be paid in advance.

We are plagued with the something for nothing mentality that is taking us off course, running after the next shiny object and the next diet pill and next easy solution, and the next bit of free information.

The other thing to take away from this is, don’t be afraid to charge for information that will help transform lives.

Create products and services, and charge a good price for them, what the market that you are going after will bear, but also based on the value you deliver with it. This way you are helping increase the chances of success for your clients too.

Ah, one other thing, if you are an online marketer and are chasing after ‘free’ traffic, remember your time is not ‘free’ you only have a limited amount of time. Create an offer, send paid traffic to it to test and validate if the market wants it, and then deliver the product or service that will help people get the promised result. I say this because I spent close to 2 years on trying for ‘free’ traffic to my affiliate sites, with not a whole lot to show for.

The only thing in life that I think we can never pay the price or buy, is salvation (from sin), as the price has already been paid (by Christ), but I think that is also the reason that it is the hardest to accept. Doing good works, or being a good person doesn’t buy it, it is granted by Grace, through Christ who has done the work, and paid the price. The only thing we can do in this case is accept that fact and thank God for it. 🙂 (This last bit is especially for my dear Christian friends who can mistake the meaning of what I’ve written above it)

So hope that has helped you.

Spend very little time scouring for free information, or for that matter ‘free’ anything

Invest your time and effort wisely, into things that you need ‘in time’ rather that ‘in case’.

Take action on the information and implement it all, before trying to tweak things or combine ideas from different sources.

If and when you can afford it, pay for the higher end versions and seminars etc, and go straight to the top.

If you are in the online information marketing business, the highest value activities are – creating offers that convert (not the product itself), creating campaigns with paid traffic that bring in targeted prospective clients, and building an email list.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

Do let me know with a comment below if you found this useful, and if there is anything that needs further clarification.

Have you ever thought you wanted to achieve a goal, and seemed to be doing things, but getting nowhere?

Have you struggled to be inspired and motivated to do what you know you need to do to achieve those goals?

Knowing, what I do now, I believe that the 'Why' behind each of those goals is very important.

Analysing my past successes, and failures, each of the successes, had a big 'Why' behind the inspiration and motivation that I had to achieve them.

If we don't have this 'Why', we won't be able to persevere when we hit the road bumps that we all do on the way to our goals.

When in came to successfully losing weight and keeping it off, and when it came to quitting smoking and staying away from it, the deep desire in me to want to be a great example for my future family (back then I was single), and to prove my naysayers and people who riddiculed me all my life, pushed me a helped me power through multiple failures.

Now with the online business, I have persevered and returned to it over the years, because I want to set an example for future generations of my family, to be creators of value, to not have to depend on someone to pay them in exchange for time, and to be able to have freedom to live.

The thing is this, we have only one life to live, and to live that life to the fullest, we need to not only have a sense of accomplishment and having made a difference, we also need money (which comes from creating value and solving problems) to buy time and location freedom, along with being able to have the resources to buy quality food to stay healthy.

Zig Ziglar used to say, "Money is not the most important thing, but it is reasonably close to oxygen". Money in and of itself, after we have met our basic needs is a means o keeping score of the value we add to the market place, and the difference we make. Don't ever be guilty of wanting to make money, when you know you are adding value for it and changing lives in some positive way.

So how do you use your why to motivate and propell you?

Well, here is where from previous experience, I can say, keep the end result at the top of your mind and visualise the result you want.

I now realise that with weight loss and quitting smoking all those years ago, I unconsciously used this.

I would visualise (I didn't even know it was called that, nor did I know what I know now about it), what the end result would be if I kept doing what I was doing, ie. smoking all those cigarettes and or getting fatter as I was. I didn't like the end result that I could see I was heading towards. Then I would think, to be a good example for my kids, I would have to be healthy in eating well, exercising well and not indulging in vices like smoking.

Now, I could say that was all I did, but there is one secret element to all this as well.

As a Christian, (I had gone from being an atheist to a Christian, just before the big transformations happened in life), I would also pray to God for strength.

No, I didn't pray "God, just magically give me a great, lean and fit body" or "God, take away my addiction to cigarettes". Although I would have liked to pray like that, I somehow knew (and my dad used to always say "God will give you the fruit, but you have got to peel it and eat it") that I needed to pray for strength to go through the process to become the person who would have that ideal end point that I wanted and visualised.

Now, from doing research into things like visualisation, I realise that, unlike what some people out there would like to believe and teach, visualising some result doesn't magically make it happen, nor does it automatically get the end result.

It solidifies the 'Why' in our minds, keeps it at the top of the mind and activates the Reticular Articulating System (RAS), which then keeps and eye out for targetted information and situations to help get the result that you want.

The other thing that I also did was, start taking action towards those goals immediately, with what I already knew.

This meant making mistakes like crash dieting, but if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have taken the steps after that when it failed, to learn all that I have in the last 12 years.

So, if you are struggling to find the 'Why' to something you want to achieve you can use these resources in that order (even though I did it differently, finally putting it it this order made sense and helped clear a lot of things for me).

I've used each of them and have found them all helpful, and think doing Rory's questions first, followed by the 5 Why's and then putting it all together with Frank Kern's Perfect Day exercise, brings it all together nicely.